American Wines, Gorman on California Premium Wines, The California Wine Book, Great Winemakers of California, Sunset's California Wine Country, Wines of California as seen in San Francisco, California on Thursday March 13, 2014.

Not long ago, I was asked whether the changes to California wine in the 1990s and early 2000s, the rise of what I've called Big Flavor, were necessary in order to reach today's more interesting state.

Absolutely. California's history, like its geology, moves fast. Which is why I occasionally need a long view to the past.

Today, some of the textbooks for my particular history lesson. Over the past several years, I've made a hobby of collecting California wine books of decades past, particularly from the industry's 1970s heyday.

So, yes, I need to get out more. But change in California is constant. I'm always craving a little perspective.

Thus I have spent more hours than I'd care to admit with these out-of-print books, starting with 1982's epic "University of California/Sotheby Book of California Wine." It's a tome substantial enough to double as the booster seat I would have needed when that glorious era was under way.

It has become my coffee table book, literally, not only for studious essays (Gerald Asher on Cabernet) and diversions (Alice Waters rapturous about "coq au Zinfandel") but even for the seemingly dull grids of critics' assessments in back. Who dug the great Chateau Montelena Chardonnays of the 1970s, and who shrugged?

Like I said, I need to get out more.

Tasting notes have always had their place. Robert Gorman's 1975 "Gorman on California Premium Wines" is a perfect snapshot of a region on the precipice of fame.

Among many things, Gorman relays word of an important wine: The 1972 Sutter Home Oeil de Perdrix White Zinfandel, "(s)urprisingly deep flavored on the palate, quite dry." Just three years later, sugar would remain in that wine and the White Zin era would begin.

Gorman's capture of 1970s Zinfandel virtually mirrors our current back-to-the-future state with that grape (http://is.gd/zinera). At 17.5 percent alcohol, the 1969 Trentadue Chateau 32 Late-Harvest Burgundy is "captivating" but overwhelming: "It is necessary to come up occasionally for a rest!" There is breezier glee about several Beaujolais-style Zinfandels, a style now being revived, and for the elegance of a 1972 Clos du Val Zinfandel. ("Lovers of French Pomerol will love this wine!")

No wine before its time

Cabernet? Gorman asserts that it "makes the finest red wine in California, provided that is it left to mature properly." (Emphasis his.) His concern is "the lamentable experience of novice wine drinkers" popping corks too soon.

Soon, with the 1980s, even higher-acid "food wines" arrived - requiring time before drinking. And then Newton's Third Law would step in. By the late 1990s, this early-drinking issue would be remedied - not by Cabernet being left to age, but by many California winemakers ripping out the variety's backbone through a sort of flavor wizardry. They would de-Cabernet Cabernet in order to slake a broader thirst.

Others shared this view about Cabernet infanticide, including Bob Thompson and Hugh Johnson, in perhaps the most eloquent snapshot of the era, 1976's "The California Wine Book": "Too few wait for the hour to strike. Too few know this wine in its prime."

What of Chardonnay? Robert Balzer, California's most eminent midcentury critic, touted the grape's astronomical growth in his 1978 "Wines of California."

Balzer was impressed by its dramatic rise, from 150 acres in 1962 to more than 11,000 at the time. (Little could he imagine ninefold growth from there.) But he offered a note of caution - one evidently ignored - "that all the vines of this elegant species do not produce equally elegant wines," specifically Chardonnay in the state's interior, a source for "table wines of unremarkable character." That sentiment was washed away by oceans of $8 Chardonnay.

Balzer offers other clues about California's growing pains. His roster of varieties includes some curious predictions. While modest Ugni Blanc (a.k.a. Trebbiano) was doing no one any favors at the time, "don't be surprised someday to find a California Trebbiano that is competing for the Soave market." (Yes. It's called Pinot Grigio.)

No one captured winemakers' own voices better than law professor Robert Benson in "Great Winemakers of California," published in 1977. Benson interviewed everyone from Robert Mondavi to Chalone's Dick Graff, often with glass in hand.

There is Mike Grgich, fresh off victory at 1976's Judgment of Paris ("Californians are not yet equal to the French in the art of winemaking but will be soon.") Particularly, there is Joe Heitz's saltiness. Why does he add yeast to ferment his wines? "I basically believe Mother Nature is a mean old lady, and mankind has to help make wine."

Sometimes, I can't but be wistful for what is gone. Sunset's "California Wine Country," again from Bob Thompson, was foremost a travel guide (a Contra Costa itinerary included the "highly visitable relics" of Port Costa). Even in 1978, when the book was published, a trip to the "relatively unpopulated strip" east of Los Angeles near Ontario was deemed worthwhile. "Who'd suspect 12,000 acres of vines exist an hour from downtown?"

Some areas shrink

Today, just 541 remain. When last did you have a Cucamonga wine?

Let's end with consider the heartening words of the great midcentury wine scholar Frank Schoonmaker and his co-author Tom Marvel, in 1941's "American Wine."

They grumble about the "Import Snob" being supplanted by the "Patriot Snob" ("loudly proclaiming that 'American wines are the best in the world' ") but they are taken with California wine's struggle for identity, one that remains: "[W]e are dealing in California with a vineyard country in the process of creation - only the general outline can be seen by now."

I'm particularly fond of my own acquired copy of this book for the ephemera tucked inside. I found a handwritten itinerary, evidently from 1948, written by the book's previous owner.

Go to "modern" Charles Krug, the note says, and talk with Bob Mondavi. The next stop? Visit Lee Stewart at his new Souverain winery.